


O Little Town of Bethlehem

by ImprobableDreams900



Series: Eden!verse [4]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Fluff, Gen, Historical, Humor, Serpent!Crowley, Snake!Crowley - Freeform, obligatory drunk scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 04:41:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8954038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImprobableDreams900/pseuds/ImprobableDreams900
Summary: What really happened that very first Christmas.Loose prequel to “A Memory of Eden"; works as a stand-alone





	

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas, everyone!
> 
> I did my best with the historical aspects; take pity on me.

They called it Ephrath, and Beth-Lehem Judah, and the City of David, and its name meant 'house of bread,' but everyone Aziraphale bumped into just called it Bethlehem.

It was fairly small and unassuming, as far as towns went. If it had ever committed a crime, it had likely got away with it, as it was doubtful that even the sharpest-eyed witness would be able to pick it out of a line-up with a half-dozen other small, rather shabby towns. (Not that it had ever committed a crime, of course; given the magnitude of what was about to occur there, Heaven had very thoroughly vetted it. That was exactly the sort of unpleasantness you didn’t want cropping up later and getting in the way of things further down the road.)

Aziraphale had passed through thousands of towns like this in his lifetime, and seven in the past two days alone, and Bethlehem seemed to have nothing to recommend it over any of its neighbors. There was a small city centre with a bustling market and an ever-popular well, all surrounded by a sprawling mass of nearly-identical houses made of tan, sun-baked bricks. It seemed to be doing quite a brisk trade in textiles, but apart from that nothing about this particular town seemed noteworthy in the slightest.

Which was why Aziraphale was utterly mystified as to why Heaven had sent him there.

His best guess was that it had something to do with the census of Judea that that Roman chap Quirinius was carrying out, even though Heaven had never shown the slightest interest in human demographics before.

In fact, Aziraphale found the idea of counting all of humanity more than a trifle amusing, not least of all because most of humanity didn't have the faintest clue where everybody else was, or that they existed at all, in many cases. And on top of that, humans were born and died with such frequency that counting them at all seemed like a futile effort. When Aziraphale had voiced these concerns to one of his travelling partners, a woman named Sabina, she had whispered in a conspiratorial undertone that it had to do with taxes.

The part of the census that intrigued Aziraphale the most was that it required all the citizens of Judea to return to the place where the head of the family had been born. This seemed like adding an extra logistical complication onto an issue already fraught with difficulty, but that was humans for you.

Because of this, Bethlehem was overflowing with people, and more were streaming in every day.

Aziraphale had walked into town just hours before with a small caravan of them himself; he had spent most of the time talking with Sabina and helping keep her young son Ephraim out of trouble. Sabina’s husband had passed away several years prior, and she seemed grateful of the help, despite the fact that she now lived—and was currently travelling with—her brother Darius and his family. Darius had been born in Bethlehem all those years ago, so, when the census was proclaimed, to Bethlehem they had dutifully gone.

Once they reached the outskirts of the town, Aziraphale bid Sabina and Darius farewell and set about attempting to discover what mission Heaven had for him here. While en route to the city centre where he planned to start his search, he passed a vendor selling something that looked enticingly like scrolls and those new codex things made of papyrus, and made a brief detour.

Two and a half hours later, Aziraphale emerged from the small shop and decided it would be perfectly all right if he just sat down for a moment to rest—it _was_ awfully hot out, after all—and proceeded to just _happen_ to open one of the scrolls he had just purchased.

The sun was heading determinedly towards the horizon when Aziraphale was abruptly stirred from his reading by the arrival of Ephraim, the boy he had so recently parted company with.

“ _Maryah_ Aziraphale! _Maryah_ Aziraphale!”

The angel started a little and looked up, guiltily marking his place in the scroll with a finger. He wondered belatedly if whatever Heaven had sent him to look into had been particularly time-sensitive. When he saw it was only Ephraim, looking distressed but unharmed, he let out a relieved little huff. Ephraim seemed to think this was completely unwarranted, because when he skidded to a stop in front of where the angel was sitting on a convenient bit of stonework, he was breathing heavily and it looked like tears weren’t entirely out of the question.

“What is it, dear boy?” Aziraphale asked kindly, rolling up his scroll ruefully and tucking it away in his bag. He’d started acquiring quite the collection of writings recently, and was beginning to think he might need to secure a more permanent place to put them all, since carrying them with him was becoming increasingly impractical.

“Mother sent me for apples at the market, and I bought them, but when I was on my way back, this man just came up and stole them!” Ephraim ran out of breath in indignation.

Aziraphale frowned at the boy. “Stole them? Right out of your hands?”

Ephraim nodded wretchedly. “Just grabbed them, like I weren’t even there! I told him to give them back, but he wouldn’t.”

“Shame on him.”

“I told him I’d be back—come help me, _maryah_. I’d have taken them back myself, and one day I’ll be big enough to do it, but he was holding them higher than me.”

Though the matter was trivial at best, Ephraim looked like this meant the world to him, so Aziraphale pushed himself to his feet, wincing and stretching his back as he did so. He was getting too old for this sort of thing. “Lead the way,” Aziraphale said, waving his hand in indication that Ephraim had the floor.

The boy beamed at him in relieved delight and turned and started off down the road at a brisk pace. The street was still fairly busy, and Ephraim constantly had to double back and peer around pedestrians and livestock to make sure Aziraphale was keeping up.

It wasn’t long before they reached the market at the city centre. Ephraim ducked around a pair of women looking at a sample of cloth and Aziraphale followed, giving the women a grave nod when they looked around as Ephraim flashed past.

Beyond them, near the edge of the market, a tall man stood leaning lazily against the wall of a nearby building, languidly eating an apple. Or, at least, he looked like a man.

Aziraphale rocked to a surprised halt a few feet away. The man looked over uninterestedly at the same time, attention drawn by Ephraim, who was demanding his apples back. Then his gaze flicked up to Aziraphale, and he swallowed what looked like a mostly un-chewed bite of apple. He made an admirable attempt to keep it down and turned a delicate shade of pink.

 _“Aziraphale?”_ he squeaked in surprise.

Aziraphale recovered first. He felt a grin break over his face as he strode forward and enveloped his old friend in an enormous hug. Crowley had a different corporation than the last time Aziraphale had seen him, and this one was scrawny and felt like it could do with being fed something more filling than apples. But four thousand years of antagonistic and then not-quite-so-antagonistic behaviour had left their mark, and Aziraphale wouldn’t mistake the demon’s aura anywhere.

“Ock, ge’roff,” Crowley complained, and though he set about extricating himself from the angel’s embrace, the smile in his voice was unmistakable.

As Aziraphale let go of him and took a step back, he noticed that his friend was still using a spell to disguise his serpentine eyes; it was a shame.

Crowley made a show of straightening his robe, which Aziraphale had rumpled slightly. “Well, if it isn’t the Guardian of the Eastern Gate himself,” the demon said, suppressing what looked like a smile. The expression looked strange on his new face, both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, like seeing the family resemblance among siblings. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Aziraphale replied, taking another step back and trying to get a handle on Crowley’s new corporation.

“Oh, you know me. Business as usual.” Crowley noticed what Aziraphale was doing and spread his arms wide, showing off his new corporation like he might a particularly fine coat. “How do you like it?”

Aziraphale looked him up and down. “Not bad,” he said appreciatively, and with maybe a twinge of envy. “Could use some feeding up. What happened to the old one?”

Crowley grimaced and dropped his arms back to his sides. “Persia, if you’d believe—”

“Hey! Do you know each other or something?” Ephraim interrupted loudly. He was standing between them, slightly closer to Aziraphale, glaring at Crowley and looking between them suspiciously.

“Oh, yes, sorry, where are my manners?” Aziraphale said, a little flustered. “Ephraim, this is my...er, old friend Crowley. Crowley, Ephraim. We were in the same caravan coming in; we only arrived earlier today.”

“Me too,” Crowley said, and eyed Ephraim up.

“He says you’ve been stealing apples again, and, frankly, my dear, with your record—”

“Oi, I didn’t _steal_ the first one,” Crowley protested, but turned nevertheless and reached up towards where the wall he’d been leaning against abutted a nearby roof, “Eve did that all by herself.” He retrieved the bag of apples from the edge of the roof and tossed it to Ephraim, who caught it clumsily. “There you go, kid. I don’t even like apples.”

“I told you I’d get them back!” Ephraim said importantly, and Crowley rolled his eyes and gave Aziraphale a long-suffering look.

“Don’t I know it,” he muttered.

“Ephraim, how about you head back to your mother,” Aziraphale suggested kindly. “She must be wondering where you’ve got to.”

Ephraim gave Aziraphale another suspicious look, as though colluding with the apple-thief rendered him an extremely untrustworthy character, but was eventually persuaded to run along.

“Hey, do you want to grab a drink?” Crowley asked hopefully once the boy was gone. “There’s this great tavern just around the corner, and I can tell you all about Persia.”

Aziraphale thought he’d never heard a more splendid idea. “Absolutely.”

 

~~***~~

 

“So what are you really doing here?” Crowley asked, swirling his drink around in its earthenware cup and looking at where Aziraphale was sitting cross-legged on the other side of the short, rickety tavern table.

Aziraphale frowned and tapped his fingers against the side of his own cup, but decided he didn’t have much to lose by telling Crowley the truth. “Heaven sent me,” he admitted.

“What for?” Crowley asked, raising his cup and taking a drink. He licked his lips and then gave the cup a very suspicious look and sniffed at its contents cautiously; the drink was one made from fermented dates that the locals called _shechar_ , and, from the look Crowley was giving it, Aziraphale guessed that the man who’d prepared it for them hadn’t been lying when he’d said it was strong. “If you don’t mind me prying into Upstairs business, that is.”

“Oh, it’s your standard special assignment,” Aziraphale said, scratching behind an ear and trying not to sound too evasive. “Very high clearance, explore and evaluate local terrain and colour, that sort of thing...you know how it is.”

Crowley looked at him from across the top of his cup. “They didn’t tell you a sodding thing, did they?”

Aziraphale sighed. “Not a thing.”

Crowley smirked and took a swig of his drink, making a face at the taste. “Below did the same with me,” he said after a moment. “Go here. Bethlehem? Yep, small town two left turns after nowhere—That’s the one, and you’d better get there sharpish. Why? We’re not telling.”

Aziraphale turned that over in his mind as Crowley went back to swirling his _shechar_ around. Aziraphale tapped his fingers nervously against the rim of his own cup. “Do you think it has something to do with the census?”

Crowley grimaced. “Oh, G—Satan, I hope not. Whose idea was that thrice-blessed thing anyway?”

“The governor of Syria,” Aziraphale said helpfully. “Quir-something or another.”

“Asmodeus should set something up especially for him,” Crowley said. “Why send everyone back to their birthplaces? It doesn’t make a lick of sssenssse!”

Aziraphale blinked in surprise.

“And it’s not like the humans aren’t going to just wander off somewhere else next year; it’s ridiculous!”

“Precisely!”

“Well,” Crowley said after a moment, peering into his cup again, “I really hope it’s not the blasted census. If Belphegor wants me to get him a bleeding copy or something, he can do it himself.”

Aziraphale considered this. “But why this particular town? Why Bethlehem? Other places have had censuses, and there’s nothing else here.”

Crowley shrugged and leaned back. “Beats me,” he said. “But whatever it was Above and Below sent us to do, it can wait until morning, surely. What’s it been, angel—half a century? Three-quarters? What have the forces of Heaven on Earth been up to?”

 

~~***~~

 

“That time in Babylon, remember, with Tiamat—”

“No, no, Troy, that’s the one you’re think—thunk—thinking of.”

Crowley screwed up his face with painstaking thoroughness. “Naaaah, not Troy—”

Aziraphale sat forward heavily, bumping his elbows into the edge of the table as he did so, making their cups jump a quarter of an inch. “Yes, Troy, because that was the one with the...the...” Aziraphale’s train of thought took an unexpected turn at the switch and veered off into uncharted territory; he found himself staring at Crowley instead. The demon’s new face was oddly compelling, and he was mesmerised for a moment, watching Crowley crinkle his nose in fascination.

“Tiamat,” the demon insisted stubbornly.

“It was wooden,” Aziraphale came up with at last, climbing back aboard his train of thought. “Giant wooden animal. Trap, remember?”

Crowley fumbled for his cup. “Sssnake?” he suggested.

Aziraphale shook his head fiercely and then stopped when the room spun. “Not a snake,” he said. “Bigger.”

Crowley sat forward and slouched over the low table, resting his chin on the surface and running a finger uncoordinatedly over the wood grain. “Ain’t—isssn’t—ain’t nothing bigger than a sssnake,” he asserted.

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow at the demon. Or, at least, he tried to. It ended up as a vaguely superior expression. “What about that ele—elephant you said ste—stepped on you in—in—”

“Persssia,” Crowley hissed, and ground his forehead into the table. “Ssstupid bleeding elephants.”

“And it was a different animal,” Aziraphale said, reaching for his cup and missing by several inches. “Big one.”

Crowley screwed up his face in thought and tilted his head enough so that he could squint up at Aziraphale through slightly bloodshot eyes. “Dol—phins?” he suggested with a hiccup, sounding uncertain himself. Then he smiled a little and blinked sluggishly. “I like dolphins.”

Aziraphale frowned at his friend. “It’s a land animal,” he reminded the demon. “Troy. That’s what—what we were talk—talking about.”

Crowley screwed up his face again, looking unhappy to be put back on task. “Oh, I don’t remem—ember, angel.”

Aziraphale found his cup quite by accident and took a drink automatically. He licked his lips and stared into space for a moment, feeling the sharp taste linger on his tongue. “Oh!” he said suddenly, and made a commendable effort to snap his fingers. “It was a horse.”

Crowley looked up at him, head still resting on the table. “Wha’sss a horssse?”

“Troy.” Aziraphale felt certain of that.

“I don’t remember T—roy,” Crowley mumbled, and hiccuped. “When wasss that?”

“Ages ago,” Aziraphale told him with surety. “Time. Long time. Ages.”

Crowley nodded, the movement shaking the entire table. Then he paused suddenly, eyes narrowing slightly. “Waiiiiiit, Troy. Wasss that the—the placcce with the ssstupid wall?”

Aziraphale frowned at the demon again. “What wall?”

“Troooooy,” Crowley mumbled, and pushed himself upright, blinking as he regained verticality. He put both palms flat on the table for support. “Yeah, that was the wall—” He stopped and reached a wavering hand in Aziraphale’s direction, finding the angel’s arm and giving it a solid swat.

“What was tha—at for?” Aziraphale protested, and hiccuped.

“You and your ssstupid ssspear,” Crowley said in a slurred hiss. “Knocked me clean off that ssstupid wall, you ssstupid daft angel—”

It took a few minutes for Aziraphale to process what Crowley was saying, and then he felt himself flush with more than just drink. “I said—said I was sorry—”

“Oh, ssshut up, you didn’t have to explain to Bel—Belpheg—Bal— _your_ bossssesss what happened.”

Aziraphale found Crowley’s shoulder and did his best to pat it apologetically. “I _am_ s—sorry, my dear.”

“One of thessse dayss,” Crowley said, fumbling for his cup, “we’re going to both forget that ever h—happened, and I’m going to be ssso bloody happy.”

Aziraphale patted Crowley clumsily on the shoulder again, and gave him a lopsided smile. “We can only hope.”

 

~~***~~

 

“Nooooope, they sssaid they’re full too,” Crowley said, stumbling back in Aziraphale’s direction. He bumped into the angel before he could gauge the remaining distance, and Aziraphale rocked back on his feet, grabbing Crowley’s arm to steady himself.

Once they had regained their collective balances, Aziraphale straightened up, releasing Crowley’s arm and brushing something imaginary off the demon’s shoulder. Crowley turned his head and frowned down at his own shoulder in confusion as Aziraphale squinted down the moonlit road. The air had turned cool once the sun had dipped below the horizon, but its sobering effect wasn’t as powerful as it could have been.

“I think there’s—there’s one more at the end,” Aziraphale said, pointing down the road at something twenty degrees to the left of the inn he was indicating.

Crowley’s head swung around and he frowned speculatively in the general direction Aziraphale was pointing. He nodded and took a shaky step in that direction. Aziraphale followed him, trying to keep his feet moving in a straight line and occasionally bumping into Crowley and sending them both veering off track. The angel wondered with sudden curiosity whether or not Crowley was ticklish while drunk.

“One of thesse placesss hasss to have—have—sss—sss—hehe, ssstoppit, angel.”

Aziraphale sadly retracted his hands, but filed this information away for later.

“Here, let’sss try this one,” Crowley said, stumbling away from Aziraphale and his devilish fingers. It took him two tries to find the door, and then he vanished inside. Aziraphale lurched to a halt outside, humming a little to himself.

Crowley emerged a few minutes later just as a distressed-looking man and his very pregnant wife walked past, casting the inn a nervous, hopeful look. Neither angel nor demon spared them a glance.

“Hey, Azira—Zira—angel, they’ve got one room left, lucky us!”

 

~~***~~

 

Divinity was everywhere. It was hard to say what made it feel divine—it just _was_. The closest description would be one of power, clean and warm, and the presence of God; it was sort of like broad strokes of emotion that evoked eternity and light and the image of long, gleaming white feathers.

Aziraphale dreamt he was in Heaven. He hadn’t dreamt that in a long time—he rarely dreamt, or slept at all, for that matter—but he did this night.

When he drifted into consciousness the following morning, face pressed against something pillow-shaped and with the feeling of being both fully clothed and very hungover, he didn’t immediately register that the feeling of divinity didn’t fade.

Aziraphale blinked his eyes open and suppressed a groan. He rolled over onto his back and found himself lying on a low bed in an unfamiliar room, staring up at a rough wooden ceiling. His foot bumped into something slightly pliable and he looked over blearily to see Crowley stretched across the foot of the bed like a dog, feet sticking off the edge and head buried in one of the scratchy linen blankets. He looked to still be asleep, so Aziraphale carefully maneuvered to the edge of the bed—really more of a thin mattress lying on the floor—and quietly stood up, stretching and wincing at the hangover. There was a small window nearby, delineated in Aziraphale’s vision by a blurry square of light, and he moved towards it sluggishly. He put his hands on the brick sill and squinted out at the daylight, breathing in the fresh air, still cool from the night but starting to warm with the arrival of the sun.

The feeling of divinity was stronger here, and Aziraphale, still hungover and half-asleep, took several seconds to process this. Then his eyes adjusted, and all of the alcohol left in the angel’s corporation vaporised in an instant.

“Oh, _bugger.”_ Aziraphale leapt backwards, pulling away from the window as quickly as possible, as though the sill had burned him.

Now that he was paying attention, the feeling of divinity was overwhelming, buoying him up while he simultaneously scrambled to hide from it. He might have a few minutes before anyone pinpointed exactly where he was. Then his wildly darting eyes found Crowley, still sprawled unconscious at the foot of the bed.

A fresh spike of adrenaline shot through Aziraphale, and then a cold, heavy feeling settled into the pit of his stomach.

He should have known better than to trust a demon.

Aziraphale leaned over, grabbed Crowley by the shoulder, and roughly shook him awake.

“Ngh, what’s goin’ on?” the demon slurred as he came around. Aziraphale rolled him over unceremoniously so he could get a good look at Crowley’s face.

The demon winced at the sunlight, raising an arm to his eyes to try to shield himself.

“What did you do?” Aziraphale demanded without preamble, anger flashing through him.

Crowley blinked blearily up at the angel towering over him. “Wha’ did _I_ do?” he repeated in confusion, sounding and looking very hungover. The spell masking his eyes must have faltered sometime during the night, because his pupils were vertical slits shying from the morning light.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said in a voice not far from a hiss. “While you were distracting me with your—your— _temptations_ , what horrible, fiendish thing did you do?”

Crowley seemed to be properly registering Aziraphale’s words and anger for the first time, and he started to sit up, wincing as he banished his hangover. “What are you talking about, angel?” he asked, sounding very tired. “Temptations?”

“Why are you really here?” Aziraphale demanded, moving closer so that Crowley didn’t have the space to stand up and make a break for the door. “What was it? Assassination? Opening a hellgate? Some master plan Below’s been cooking up?”

Crowley blinked up at him in confusion. “Opening a hellgate? This town has a hellgate?”

“No,” Aziraphale ground out; even with the distraction of the scroll and codex vendor, he’d most definitely have sensed a portal to Hell in his vicinity. They were rather hard to miss. “You must have opened one. Or something.”

Crowley seemed increasingly confused. “How was I supposed to do that? And when? I was with you the entire time!”

Aziraphale, still seething, reluctantly admitted to himself that the demon had a point. “Then you did something else,” he insisted.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, arranging his voice into a cautious and careful tone. “What’s going on?”

Aziraphale frowned down at the demon, still half-lying on the bed. His hair was a mess and his clothing was rumpled, but his golden serpentine eyes were wide and honest. Even though Aziraphale knew Crowley was a demon and therefore capable of great evil and deceit, after a long moment he realised that he believed him.

Aziraphale took a step back and turned unconsciously towards the open window. He came to a decision he sincerely hoped he wouldn’t regret.

“Turn into a snake.”

Crowley sat up cautiously and stared at him. “What?”

“You can still transform into a snake, right? Do it.” Aziraphale bit his lip. He really hoped this was the right thing to do. “And quickly.”

Crowley slowly stood up. “Angel, are you feeling all—”

A flurry of raised voices drifted into the room from the window, and Aziraphale looked over automatically. At the same time, Crowley shivered.

“Hang on,” he said, looking between Aziraphale and the window. “That’s not you, is it?” Aziraphale knew he was referring to the feeling of divinity, still hanging in the air and growing stronger by the second. Aziraphale shook his head.

Crowley cast the window a suddenly very hesitant glance. “What’s going on, Aziraphale?”

The angel turned away and walked towards the door. “I don’t know,” he admitted, reaching down to collect his sandals from where they were lying upside down on the floor. “But we need to get out of here, and quickly, and I think if you—” Aziraphale turned and felt a flare of something like fear when he saw that Crowley had crept closer to the window and was peering outside. The demon was being careful to stay out of the line of sight of anyone standing in the street, but that didn’t mean he was undetectable.

“Get away from there!” Aziraphale said quickly, half-sprinting across the room and all but bodily dragging Crowley away from the window. The demon didn’t resist, and Aziraphale noticed he had gone very pale. Aziraphale’s heart was in his throat and he didn’t know why. “Do you want to get smote?” he asked, sharper than he had intended.

Crowley swallowed, the motion seeming to speak for itself. He took several hasty steps away from the window for good measure. “There’s—I think I saw... _Gabriel_ —”

Aziraphale very pointedly didn’t swear and cast the window a worried glance. He wasn’t standing close enough to see down to street level, but he could easily pick out the archangel’s aura from the surrounding feeling of divinity. It was substantially larger and stronger than that of a principality like him, or even of a throne or cherub.

Gabriel was the archangel in charge of communicating the will of their Father to the humans and lesser choirs of angels alike, and as he strode down the street towards their window, proclaiming something in a loud voice, it sounded like he was on the job.

“Good people of Bethlehem,” he was calling, voice thrumming with divine power as it floated distantly up through the window. “Harken to my words, I bring great news of coming prosperity, and the birth of the king of kings—”

Aziraphale stopped listening as the archangel’s aura rolled over him in a fresh wave of divinity, and he decided that he could figure out what exactly Heaven was up to once Crowley was out of harm’s way. He retreated hastily to where the demon was scooping his own sandals off the floor with shaking hands. Aziraphale planted his feet firmly, took a deep breath, and focussed on expanding his own aura. It was a bit like stretching a muscle he hadn’t used in a long time, or trying a complicated maths problem after a decade’s disuse, but there was a palpable increase in divinity in the room nonetheless.

Crowley froze, head snapping up, a sandal still clutched in his hand. He gave Aziraphale a slightly fearful look. “Wh—what are you doing?”

“Concentrating,” Aziraphale muttered, feeling himself tire slightly as he brightened his aura.

Crowley’s grip on the sandal redoubled and he straightened up, taking a half-step back. “You don’t think I did sssomething to—to draw all of them here, do you?” he asked, and there was a hint of a stammer in his voice. “Because I didn’t, I sss—ssswear, you’ve got to believe me, Aziraphale.”

“I do,” Aziraphale said, fixing his aura at its maximum size and brightness as though he’d lifted a heavy weight and was now resting it on his shoulders.

“Then, er, why are you making a beacon?”

Aziraphale blinked and looked over at his friend. Crowley had moved several steps away from him, and looked like he was ready to turn and flee at the slightest provocation. He was still only wearing one sandal, and his face was white and terrified; he must have known that he had no chance out there on his own, but he looked like he was ready to take those odds.

“Oh, I’m sorry, my dear,” Aziraphale said hastily, realising what this must look like.

Outside, Gabriel’s voice increased in volume, and Aziraphale took a quick step towards Crowley, positioning himself between the demon and the window. Crowley took a half-step backwards in response, towards the door, but Aziraphale raised a hand to stop him.

“It’s not a beacon,” he explained quickly. “There’s enough divine energy over this entire place that I shouldn’t stand out too much. I’m trying to blot out your aura.”

Crowley blinked, and for a moment he looked unspeakably relieved. Then Gabriel’s voice and aura both increased in intensity, and Crowley’s expression shifted back to a very palpable fear.

“Stay close to me,” Aziraphale said quickly, moving so that he and Crowley were standing almost nose-to-nose, except that they both had turned their heads to the side, the better to listen to Gabriel’s voice. Crowley’s breaths were fast and shallow, and he must have noticed it himself, because after a moment he stopped breathing altogether.

Aziraphale cast him a slightly worried look and saw that the demon had closed his eyes and gone very still; Aziraphale guessed he was trying to shrink his own aura, withdrawing into himself in the hopes of appearing smaller.

“—and glory shall be to Him on high, and peace among men on Earth,” Gabriel was saying, voice strong and clear.

Aziraphale tried to push his aura even brighter, but even at his best he knew he couldn’t hide Crowley completely, not from an archangel. He could only hope that Gabriel was too busy to be paying attention to background auras.

Gabriel’s voice peaked in volume and then, slowly, started to decline, and Aziraphale knew he had passed their window. “Harken to my words, good people of Bethlehem…” His voice fell below the volume at which Aziraphale could pick out individual words, and he heard Crowley let out a very shaky breath next to him.

Aziraphale waited until Gabriel’s voice had completely faded away and then took a half-step away from Crowley, giving the demon some much-needed space. He was still very pale, but when he spoke, his voice was stronger. “You have to get me out of here. If there’s an archangel out there, he’s bound to have loads of company, and I doubt they’re much interested in mere discorporation—”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Aziraphale said, and then shifted to a kinder tone. “You’re safe with me, my dear.”

Crowley swallowed and seemed to process something. “You wanted me to shift into a serpent?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, moving to the bed and scooping up his _sudarium_ from the floor next to it, wrapping the square of cloth around his shoulders.

Crowley swallowed and pulled on his second sandal, which he had still been holding. “Er, why?”

“Just do it,” Aziraphale said, cinching his belt tight. “I’ll explain on the way.”

Crowley paused in the process of strapping on the sandal. “On the way? You—you can’t be thinking of going _out_ there.”

“We need to get you outside the boundary of the town,” Aziraphale said. “I don’t know how long Heaven’s going to have people stationed here, and I can’t hide your aura forever.” He was already feeling the strain of maintaining a heightened aura, and time wasn’t on their side.

“Someone will notice,” Crowley insisted. “It has to be crawling with angels out there. And even now, your aura’s not large enough to hide mine entirely.”

“You’ll be less noticeable as a snake,” Aziraphale said. “And you’ll have a smaller aura.” Aziraphale wasn’t actually sure if that last was true, but Crowley didn’t seem to think it was out of the question, though he wasn’t at all fond of the prospect.

“Can’t we just hide somewhere? That kid from yesterday—you said you knew his family—”

“Someone’s going to come looking for me sooner or later,” Aziraphale said. “And we don’t have a lot of time. So serpent. Now.”

Crowley still looked uncertain, but there was another influx of voices from outside, and he took a shaky breath and shifted. There was no showy effect, just a heap of shimmering black scales on the floor where Crowley had been standing.

It turned out that Crowley did have a slightly smaller aura as a snake, which Aziraphale noted with interest as he started pulling the collar of his robe loose.

Crowley uncoiled and stretched a slender, wedge-shaped head up towards Aziraphale. “What’sss the plan?” he hissed, a delicate pink tongue flicking out and tasting the air.

“Auras are strongest near their centre,” Aziraphale said in way of explanation, and reached down to pick Crowley up. The demon hissed as he gained elevation, and wrapped his tail around the angel’s arm for support.

Aziraphale raised Crowley until they were on eye level and gave the golden-eyed serpent a very serious look. “Please don’t squirm,” he said, and unceremoniously shoved the demon down the front of his robe.

 

~~***~~

 

It went about as well as could be expected.

Aziraphale had barely made it down the stairs before Crowley’s thrashing became unbearable and he had to stagger into the shadows under the stairs and bat at the squirming knot of coils under his robe. “Stop moving,” Aziraphale hissed. “Calm down.”

Crowley stilled for a moment, and Aziraphale let out a relieved sigh, feeling Crowley’s scales cold against his skin as he exhaled. Then Crowley shifted, and Aziraphale tried very hard not to laugh as the demon got back at him for tickling him on their way to the inn. A moment later, Crowley’s black serpentine head snaked up his sternum and poked its nose through the collar of his robes.

“You’re going to get usss both sssmote,” Crowley hissed once he had freed his head enough to glare at Aziraphale. “Are you insssane?”

“Look, do you have a better idea?” Aziraphale whispered back, casting a nervous glance around in case anyone was within sight.

“Not dying,” Crowley hissed.

“Did you have anything particular in mind?” Aziraphale whispered.

Crowley’s head turned away slightly and Aziraphale felt his tail tip flick irritably against his stomach. Aziraphale took that as a no.

“Just—try to keep still and it’ll be over in a jiffy,” Aziraphale whispered with an assurance he didn’t feel.

Crowley kept his head turned away, and for a moment Aziraphale wasn’t sure if he would agree to go along with it. Then his head dipped slightly and he turned back to face the angel.

“When we get killed,” the serpent hissed, “I am ssso blaming you.”

Aziraphale felt a spark of relief—he wasn’t sure what he would have done if Crowley had refused. “You can thank me later,” he said instead, and redoubled the tightness of his belt. Crowley’s head reluctantly dipped beneath the angel’s robes again, and Aziraphale gave him a moment to get settled before striding towards the door of the inn.

The sense of divinity was even stronger at street level, and Aziraphale cast a worried look around the bustling market street before striding in the direction of what he thought was the closest edge of town. He had barely gone five feet before he spotted three angels making their way towards him.

They stood out starkly from the normal passersby, citizens and travellers alike. They were moving with a unified decisiveness, for one, arranged in a triangle like birds in flight, and they held themselves with a stiff, regulatory bearing. Aziraphale veered off at a sharp angle and ducked around a vendor selling bolts of cloth.

“Would you like to examine some Egyptian linen, sir…?”

The three angels continued forward, and Aziraphale felt Crowley shift against him nervously. Someone was speaking to Aziraphale, asking if he’d like to buy some olive oil, but the angel barely heard him as he edged around a group of men haggling by a nearby gaggle of geese. They honked at Aziraphale loudly, and the angel wondered distractedly if they could smell Crowley. He thought the demon might have hissed.

One of the angels turned to survey the geese coolly, and Aziraphale hastily pivoted on his heel and picked up a reed basket filled with figs.

“That’s thirty _gerah_ ,” a man said quickly, and Aziraphale miracled the silver coins into his hand with a thought as he turned again to see that the patrol of angels had kept walking. He supposed he had the strength of the overarching divine presence in the area to thank for that; even with his own aura heightened, he barely stood out. Maybe that demotion all those years ago hadn’t been so unfortunate after all.

Hugging the basket of figs close to himself, obscuring the misshapen lump that was Crowley while careful to not press too tightly, Aziraphale continued briskly down the street. He had locked his eyes onto a stall with several sheaves of barley in front of it, and was so focussed on reaching it that he completely failed to see the angel walking out of a nearby side street until it was too late.

“Aziraphale? Is that you, brother?”

Aziraphale felt his heart drop like a rock as he slowly came to a halt, hearing footsteps coming up behind him. He felt Crowley grow very still against him. Aziraphale turned slowly, holding the basket of figs carefully in front of him.

Striding towards him was a dark-haired angel with a neatly trimmed beard and a nose that would have made Julius Caesar envious. He smiled when he saw it really was Aziraphale, and opened his arms in greeting. “It _is_ you, brother!”

Aziraphale forced out a smile that was more like a grimace. “Malachi,” he acknowledged.

Malachi waited for him to set the basket down and greet him properly, but Aziraphale only shifted it to one hand so he could extend the other. Malachi gave him a slightly amused look and shook his hand.

“You’re looking...well,” he said, giving Aziraphale a once-over that was far too critical for the principality’s liking. His eyes went to Aziraphale’s stomach and he smiled in an amused, knowing way. “Have you been at the sweets again?”

Aziraphale flushed and shifted nervously, adjusting his grip on the basket and trying to keep as much of Crowley hidden as possible. Crowley, at least, seemed to understand that now was an excellent time to be very, very still.

“Ah, no,” Aziraphale lied, and wondered how quickly he could make a polite exit.

Malachi raised an eyebrow but took Aziraphale at his word. “Your aura is very bright,” he noticed. “Are you doing all right, old friend?”

Crowley squirmed against Aziraphale’s stomach and the angel turned on his heel quickly to hide the twitch of his robe, fighting back a laugh as Crowley’s scales scraped against his skin. “Ah, oh, er, actually, I’m very late for something,” Aziraphale invented, and quickly started walking down the street. Unfortunately, Malachi followed him.

“Everyone’s on the east side of town,” Malachi said, sounding puzzled. Aziraphale quickened his pace, but the other angel kept up doggedly. “Are you sure you’re doing all right? You seem distracted.”

“Me? Distracted? Nah,” Aziraphale said, and it felt like Crowley was burying his head into his own coils in embarrassment.

“Aziraphale, old friend—”

“I’m sorry, I really must be going,” Aziraphale said quickly, and squeezed between two large oxen pawing at the ground in the middle of the road. One of them took a step backwards just after he’d squeezed past, closing the gap between them, and he heard Malachi come to a stop, unable to get past them.

“I’ll catch up later,” Aziraphale called back, and cut through a side alley and out of Malachi’s sight.

Aziraphale made it out of the market without further incident, though he started to feel his grip on his heightened aura slipping as he tired. It really was exhausting work. He was beginning to think the worst was behind them when he took the last turn out of town too sharply and almost collided with a cherub.

She turned as Aziraphale took a hasty step backwards, realising even as he did so that he had no chance of evading her now. Instead, he hastily pulled the basket of figs as close to him as he dared and tried not to look too guilty.

“Halt, brother,” she said, raising a hand in a gesture that was part greeting and part warning. Aziraphale gave her a nervous smile. She held herself very stiffly, and from the roots of her long red hair to the heels of her well-polished boots, every inch said she was one of Heaven’s guards, and a well-trained one at that.

“Er, hello,” Aziraphale said, and felt Crowley grow very still against him. Malachi he could have overpowered if he’d had to—a well-trained cherub, on the other hand, was another matter entirely.

She tilted her head slightly, as though trying to get a better look at him. One hand went casually to the hilt of what Aziraphale recognised was a sword—a cherub’s sword. “My apologies, brother, but I do not recognise you. Are you one of Gabriel’s?”

Aziraphale gave her another nervous smile and decided honesty was the best policy. He had once owned a sword like hers, and didn’t want to give her any excuse to draw it. “Er, not really. I’m Aziraphale—I’m Heaven’s earthly liaison; I received orders to report here?”

The cherub gave a sharp nod. “The principality, yes. I understand Michael is looking for you.”

Aziraphale swallowed. “Michael’s here?” Against his stomach, Crowley gave a slightly panicked twitch and made a noticeable effort to sink closer to Aziraphale’s skin.

The cherub nodded briskly. “He and Gabriel are spearheading the operation.”

Aziraphale gave a timid, forced smile, and his grip on the basket of figs tightened. He must have held it closer to himself, because Crowley squirmed suddenly and Aziraphale forced himself to relax his grip. “Er, really?”

The cherub gave him a slightly suspicious frown. “Clearly. You should report to Michael immediately for a briefing.”

“Er,” Aziraphale said. “Sure.” He could feel his aura dimming further as his strength flagged.

When he didn’t move, the cherub’s frown deepened. “ _Now,_ principality.”

Aziraphale nodded and, slowly and deliberately, turned and walked away, back towards the city centre. He held his breath the entire way, and only let it out when he had taken a corner and was out of sight of the cherub. Aziraphale forced his pace to remain calm and measured as he circled a block of houses and took another route out of town, this one leading to the hills, not the road. He kept walking until the town was enveloped behind him by the rises of earth, and finally came to a halt.

He set down the basket of figs and pulled his collar open. “We—we made it,” Aziraphale said with a relieved smile as he carefully scooped Crowley up. The serpent was still slightly cold, and he squirmed as Aziraphale deposited him as carefully as he could onto the grass.

A moment later, Crowley was on his hands and knees on the ground, trembling slightly and looking like he might be sick. “I am never— _never_ —doing that again,” he groaned, weaving his fingers into the grass.

Aziraphale shifted nervously and glanced in the direction of Bethlehem. The divine aura was still very strong, and his own was quickly winding down in intensity. He hoped that whatever was happening in the town was enough to keep angelic eyes off the hills.

“Archangels,” Crowley whispered, and started staggering to his feet. “Bleeding _archangels_ , Aziraphale—”

“You shouldn’t stay here,” Aziraphale interrupted. “They’ll still be able to see your aura from this distance. Michael and Gabriel for sure, if no one else.”

Crowley let out a nervous, high-strung laugh, and Aziraphale cast him a worried glance. Crowley swallowed and made a visible effort to compose himself. He was still shaking a little, and he kept shifting on his feet as though he’d forgotten how to balance. Maybe he had.

“I’ll go,” Crowley said after a moment. “I need to have a little chat with Belphegor about looking into where exactly he’s sending me before he bloody well sends me there.”

Aziraphale hesitated. “I _am_ sorry about this,” he said.

Crowley cast him a slightly surprised look and rubbed at his face with the back of his hand. “Nah, you didn’t know,” he said, and then gave Aziraphale another look. “Right?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “If I’d known Heaven was planning something on this scale, I’d have—” He hesitated. He would have _what_ , exactly? Betrayed Heaven’s plans to a demon? Warned Crowley so he could escape, or possibly run to his bosses and come back with an army of demons?

Crowley seemed to be turning over a similar scenario in his head, and seemed just as surprised by Aziraphale’s words as the angel was.

After a moment of mutual embarrassment, Crowley shifted and reapplied the camouflaging spell to his serpentine eyes. “Well, I can’t say I’m keen to do this again anytime soon,” he said, and the trademark smoothness was back in his voice, as though his continued existence had not so recently been in jeopardy. He brushed some sand off the sleeve of his robe.

“No,” Aziraphale agreed hastily.

“But...you know.” Crowley’s gaze shifted and he seemed to be utterly fascinated with the hill over Aziraphale’s left shoulder. “Thanks for the drinks, angel.”

A small smile flitted over Aziraphale’s face, and when Crowley held out his hand, Aziraphale shook it.

“Give Michael my regards,” Crowley said. “And stop talking to that Malachi bloke. I didn’t like the sound of him at all.”

“I’ll try,” Aziraphale replied. He hesitated. “Look after yourself.”

Crowley gave him a small, rare smile. “I always do.”

Then Crowley turned to face the wide open hills, and took a couple of steps towards them. Aziraphale wondered how many decades it would be this time before he saw the demon again.

“Crowley, wait,” Aziraphale said quickly, and bit his lip.

Crowley stopped and turned.

Aziraphale studied him for a long moment, taking in the new corporation that was already becoming familiar to him, and found that he didn’t want to have to get used to a new one every time he saw the demon.

Aziraphale took a hesitant step towards his friend. “Did you want to, er, meet up somewhere later?” he asked. “In a year, or two, or five, or whenever?”

Crowley gave him a very peculiar look, and Aziraphale ploughed on, “It’s just—I never got to hear the rest of that Persia story. After the elephant bit.”

Crowley gave him a smooth, genuine smile then, and he was every inch the demon Aziraphale remembered from Eden. “Oh, I’m sure we can Arrange something.”


End file.
